The Secret Commonwealth and Satan's Invisible World Discovered

George Sinclair (1630-1696) - Protestant Scottish mathematician, engineer, demonologist - the nice career summary on his Wikipedia page 

Robert Kirk (1644-1692) - Protestant Scottish minister, Gaelic scholar, folklorist - also from Wikipedia

I won't right now say that I plan to write such a piece, but I will say that there ought to be a piece where someone -- preferably an occultist -- undertakes close, comparative readings of George Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered and and Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies.  

I read both of these short works over the past year because they have been cited as source material for early modern witchcraft lore, and that they are. Taken together, they are remarkable because they deal with contemporary beliefs in and experiences of the supernatural but have basically opposite theses. 

Sinclair seems to accept the demonological views of supernatural experience, that -- generally speaking -- supernatural things encountered are likely to be diabolical. Given the Christian theology that has attempted to get rid of all ambiguity concerning various beings and the fate of the human soul, it becomes difficult to explain the complexity of people's actual experience except by recourse to demonic delusion or attack. (Protestantism had even gotten rid of Purgatory, which traditionally provided leeway such that churchmen were obliged to accept that ghostly visitations, e.g. in nocturnal processions like the Wild Hunt, might be souls taking temporary leave from Purgatory and carrying out unfinished business on the hither side.) 

Kirk, on the other hand, takes a broad-minded or liberal approach. He accepts the basic Christian cosmology. However, he knows very well that some among his rural parishioners possess ''second sight,'' being able to perceive various beings known as fairies, elves, etc. He is aware that people routinely experience premonitions and the like. While not necessarily denying the existence of demonic powers, he sees these various beings as part of a spiritual and natural ecosystem within a Christian cosmology. Just as God created humans, so he created fairies. And people have experiences of them. This is not a bad thing for him, just another variety of human experience. 

The two men were writing in roughly the same time and place and from a Protestant point of view. Albeit highly religious, both were proto-Enlightenment sort of figures, with wide-ranging scientific and intellectual connections. Both undertook a kind of proto-anthropology or folklorist approach, with Kirk perhaps embodying this more so, since he seems to have actual rapport with the rural people he describes and records their understandings. (Sinclair, again, relies more on elaborated theory of witchcraft or learned theological explanations to characterize second and thirdhand stories, which are nevertheless still compelling.) 

These readings could be a centerpiece for a larger exploration, or really meditation on the problematic of supernatural experience in Christian history. Or rather, in Christian society. 

Briefly: Especially from our post-Enlightenment perspective (or, haven taken onboard modernist assumptions that categorize supernatural experience as ''superstition,'') it seems natural that Christianity and its truth claims rest on a belief in supernatural experience. That is true in a sense. But for doctrinal religion, which didn't really exist until late antiquity, these experiences are a problem. 

As early as the first or second century Christian text, the Didache (which didn't make it into the cannon) it was clear that people having visionary experiences and prophesying or evangelizing was problematic because it is easy to depart from whatever was consolidating as orthodoxy in a given moment. These early texts, as in the Acts of the Apostles, give a view of an early Jesus movement made up of itinerant ascetics who went from house to house preaching as the spirit moved them. This was how the movement spread, but it was not ultimately conducive to the institutional needs of what became Christianity. The Didache itself is very much concerned with the ''false prophets'' who depart from their particular sect's views, and also outright swindlers who are taking more than the accepted level of alms. 

A way around this was the development of hierarchies of bishops, and monastic orders could place the visionaries and mystics within safe physical and institutional enclosures, different from the early sort of heroic ascetics, anchorites, etc. 

Popular impulses around ancestral veneration, need to ensure fertility of crops, and more, could likewise be integrated into the cults of the saints and the cyclical experience of the liturgical year. Again, Catholic Christianity accommodated the common experience of ghosts and other supernatural entities, in part via the doctrine of Purgatory. 

Protestantism stripped everything down and presented much starker options, in general, but this was never fully possible, as both The Secret Commonwealth and Satan's Invisible World show. 

A Painful Toad Gnosis

Some weeks ago, I found a dried toad corpse in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I stopped and looked at it, ultimately deciding to take it. Via pendulum, I conversed with my primary familiar about whether I should undertake some kind of toad work. The very idea is conditioned by reading The Pattern Under the Plough, etc.

I got affirmative answers, and did some basic work over several weeks: I kept the corpse in a small, lidded, cauldron, propitiated it with offerings, and attempted to view a toad spirit in the Otherworld.

Meanwhile, I did notice an uptick in discussions on Facebook regarding the toad bone rite, etc.

It occurred to me also that -- it being summer -- this work corresponded with natural cycles of toad and frog mating. I began hearing them in the courtyard of the apartment complex every night. At times the calls became cacophonous.

Ultimately, on a full moon, I opted to utilize Isobel Gowdie's formula and shapeshift into a toad in the Otherworld. I also glimpsed ethereal frogs and toads emerging from a fountain in a place like Blockula.

In summary, over the course of days and nights, I experienced, as it were, an increasing alignment with both this Otherworld hypostasis as well as the natural crescendo of summertime toad and frog mating.

The day after the full moon I discovered that the fountains and lazy river in the courtyard of my apartment were filled with hundreds of tadpoles. I watched them with awe, and had a feeling of total fulfillment. I dipped my oak wand into the water -- mirroring the way I dipped the wand into a cauldron on the Summer Solstice -- attempting to impart some small amount of energy for their growth.

The next day, when I returned from work, I discovered that the maintenance people had dumped dangerous amounts of chlorine or bleach into the water, either to kill algae, the tadpoles, or both. A horrible smell filled the air and I found it difficult to breathe. I could see vapors rising from the water, which was now cloudy white. The tadpoles, which had swum so quickly that morning, were all dead.

I was overwhelmed with feelings of horror and sadness: despair at the brokenness of things.

Awareness of the record temperatures was a part of it. I had an impression -- fear, really -- of final desolation brought about by capitalist ecocide.

I cannot say that I have fully recovered. It is a reality of our situation that "connecting with nature," spiritually and otherwise, implies increased awareness of the danger facing all life.

Nevertheless, I want to do the work of the toad spirit, whatever that is.

Christmas Ghost Story Collection: The Wind From Outside

Here is the print edition of my Christmas ghost story collection, released in 2020. It has been expanded with two additional stories written after the original release. This print edition is $12.00.

If you would like the pdf, free of charge, just email me and I will send it to you. Merry Christmas and Happy Yule!

Email for pdf: headofmimirblog @ g m a i l . c o m

The present collection is a series of supernatural stories written by Gregory E. Williams conceived with the long history of the Christmas ghost story as backdrop (the tradition predates Victorian authors like Dickens and perhaps even Christianity). The tales center around the strangeness of memory and the passage of time, intersected by queer history and identity. They circle around themes related to the last decades of the 20th Century, for example, the dawning of the millennium as a cultural event. Obsolete technologies like tape recorders and archived internet posts reappear and impinge weirdly upon the lives of characters.

As I wrote these pieces, I was struck by how alien the markers of the recent past can seem. On the other hand, the year 2000 really was a long time ago, and we are as if in an aftertime where past coordinates are increasingly obsolete, albeit hauntingly present. As I prepare this text for publication, we are in midst of a pandemic. The present also feels radically alien, and the future unimaginable. Researchers are looking into ways that the coronavirus ordeal is warping our experience of time. Duke University psychologist and neuroscientist, Kevin LaBar noted to Discover magazine, “I’ve experienced it myself. As this drags on, and as your day becomes very constrained by your limited environment, the days kind of blend together.” This is as good a time as any to indulge in some ghost stories for Christmas, that is, to give some regard to the looming, primeval night.

For more about the Christmas ghost story tradition, check out this link: https://weirdchristmas.com/2018/12/04/wc-podcast-12-victorian-xmas-ghost-stories/

Christmas Resources, Pt. 3

 Kindly see parts 1 and 2. 

This will be a quick post, as I have a new find here on the first of December, and it's a bit time-sensitive. 

Here we have the Hypnogoria Oldtime Yuletide Advent Calendar. This calendar is interactive, with each date on the calendar being a "door" leading to a bit of lore, available as text or short podcast. 

The calendar appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. The site is extensive and I have not yet had time to explore it. But beyond holiday content and the charm of the calendar format, the site's style evokes the old internet -- what one might have seen on Geocities or Angelfire. That may be enough to interest some explorers of the hauntological. 

Christmas Resources Pt. 2, Historical Farm Series

 

 

 

From Victorian Farm, left to right: archaeologists Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands and historian Ruth Goodman 

Kindly see Christmas Resources Pt. 1.

As I continue to compile my Yuletide resource list, I found it necessary to dedicate an entire post to BBC Two's historical farm series. 

There are five of these series, strictly speaking, plus the related series Victorian Pharmacy and Secrets of the Castle; all were produced by David Upshal.

I have included links to all of the relevant December/Christmas episodes below. 

Now, to my mind, these series together constitute an extraordinary achievement in the history of television. 

Each series features a team of historians and archaeologists meticulously carrying out period activities, sometimes using techniques not seen in the British Isles for hundreds of years, with principal figures like Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn, and Alex Langlands appearing in all series; historian Ronald Hutton is a recurring guest, who comes to impart holiday lore. 

In Tales from the Green Valley, for instance, the team recreate a Welsh farm of the Stuart era "for a full calendar year." (This phrase is a memorable feature of the opening.) To that end they bring in many experts in order to plow fields, thatch roofs, prepare food, and more. Each episode documents one month's work.

Naturally, the Christmas episodes are my favorites. In preparation for the coming season, I have re-watched these particular episodes in order. Among other things, these recreations go a long way towards dispelling the notion that there is a modern "Christmas creep" (an ever-expanding holiday season). The episodes show that, on the contrary, there was historically a long feasting season based on the patterns of rural life, and these traditions were dealt a blow by capitalist modernity — namely with the industrial revolution and Protestant Reformation. 

If the Victorians revived Christmas, and consolidated the holiday as we know it, the revival itself speaks to the depth of the traditions, to their seeming irrepressibility. 

In any case, the episodes:  

1. Tales from the Green Valley (2005) Period explored: 1620	Christmas Episode
2. Victorian Farm (2009) Period explored: 1837-1901	Christmas Episode
3. Victorian Pharmacy (2010) Period explored: 1837-1901	N/A
4. Edwardian Farm (2011) Period explored: 1901-1910	Christmas Episode
5. Wartime Farm (2012) Period explored: 1938-1946	Christmas Episode
6. Tudor Monastery Farm (2013) Period explored: 1457–1509	Christmas Episode
7. Secrets of the Castle (2014) Period explored: 13th century	N/A

Christmas Resources, Pt. 1

 

Since we are sinking deeper into the Christmas season, I wanted to compile links to miscellaneous Yuletide things that I have found interesting or useful over the past several years. Included are YouTube playlists, books, podcasts, and more.

Note that although the present blog is dedicated to esotericism in the broadest possible sense—it is an occult blog—matters treated in the linked materials may be more-or-less exoteric in their respective cultural contexts. For contemporary U.S. Americans, the likes of Krampus may have dark and even counter-cultural connotations, and result in a frisson of the strange and the eerie; though, Krampus has become more mainstream. 

Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes. But I suspect that any of these things could be interesting those looking to plumb the depths of the season in various ways. 

1. Magic and Legends of Old Christmas

Media Type: YouTube series

A couple years back, a certain Benito Cereno produced a 12-part YouTube series covering huge swaths of Christmas lore and practices. His style is humorous and the approach encyclopedic. Cereno takes us from Russia to the North American lands of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Occasionally, his cats make their presence known.

Notes on the Esoteric Plato

 

November 14, 2022

These are notes that I found on my outdated but useful AlphaSmart word processor. The reading and notes are a response to the Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast (SHWEP), which I began listening to in the autumn of 2020. Therefore, the notes were written after that, and likely in 2021. I will reproduce the text here—as an artifact—with only a few grammatical corrections and expansions for clarity. The latter are indicated in brackets.

***

Listening to the SHWEP has prompted me to return to Plato’s texts after many years. Actually, the detailed discussions on the podcast have inspired me to read Platonic texts I had never read before (i.e., the Parmenides and the Timaeus). I have been struck by how holistic Plato is when it comes to bridging the gap between rational and extra-rational modes of knowing, let us [call them]. [What follows will be] overly schematic in order to highlight some points I find significant.

From the perspective of intellectual history (that is, from the perspective of what might be presented in a course with “intellectual history” in the title), Plato comes across as the father of rational philosophizing in the traditions stemming from the Greeks. A nod is given to the pre-Socratics. I take it that this is roughly how Plato appears in the analytical cannon, at least as a necessary link in the chain leading to Aristotelian logic. I do not think that this is entirely inaccurate.

Nevertheless, I have been struck by all the ways that Plato describes extra-rational inspiration impinging upon the person, and therefore impacting discursive philosophy itself. In fact, he seems to be always trying to integrate the extra-rational into the latter, as if making it an essential moment of the whole.

Lokilech, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Diagram of the sheep's liver found near Piacenza with Etruscan inscriptions"—Wikipedia article on the Haruspex